Where Is The AARP?

The Social Security Administration cannot answer its telephones. The wait time if a person goes to a Social Security office seeking help with a problem is often hours. Backlogs are growing rapidly all over the agency. Until a few weeks ago, Social Security's budget situation was so tight that the agency was threatening to furlough its employees and close its doors for ten days.

Take a look at the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) main website having to do with Social Security issues. Look at any of their webpages having to do with Social Security. You will find no mention of Social Security's dire budget problems. This is an organization which exists to protect America's seniors and nothing is more essential to America's seniors than Social Security, yet the AARP seems not to have noticed that the Social Security Administration can barely keep its doors open.

The AARP might respond that they are looking at the "big picture", trying to make sure that Social Security is not privatized, but having the Social Security Administration chronically understaffed and delivering terrible service to the public can only hurt the effort to protect Social Security from privatization. If the public's experience is that the Social Security Administration is almost impossible to do business with, one can reasonably expect the public to be receptive to alternatives to Social Security.

Bill To Be Introduced On Benefits For Foster Children

This is from a press release issued by First Star and Representative Fortney (Pete) Stark of California, who is the second ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee and who is on its Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, but not the Chairman of that Subcommittee:

First Star announced today that a Capitol Hill briefing will be held Friday, February 16, 2007, at 9:30AM in Room 318 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The briefing will focus on the common state practice of robbing disabled and orphaned foster children of Social Security and Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI) benefits to which they are entitled. Congressman Pete Stark will introduce legislation which will enable the fair disbursement of such benefits to America's foster youth.

What:     This briefing will highlight some of the real world
        consequences that adversely affect the lives foster
        children.  Congressman Pete Stark will introduce the Foster
        Children Self-Support Act that serves to ensure that foster
        children are able to use their social security and SSI
        benefits to address their needs and improve upon their
        lives.  This briefing is co-sponsored by First Star
        (www.firststar.org), a 501(c) (3) public charity dedicated
        to improving life for child victims of abuse and neglect.

Where:    Rayburn House Office Building - Room B-318

When:     Friday, February 16, 2007 at 9:30 a.m.

Why:      Disabled foster children and those who have lost one or both
        of their parents are eligible for Social Security and/or SSI
        benefits.  Unfortunately, instead of setting this money
        aside to be used in the best interest of the child, states
        are allowed to use this money as a funding stream by making
        themselves the Social Security payee for children in foster
        care and then keeping the money for themselves.

Who:      U.S. Representative Pete Stark (CA-13th)
        Jeff Hild, Office of Congressman Pete Stark
        Shawnita T., Former foster youth
        Daniel Hatcher, Esq., University of Baltimore Law School
        Montella Smith, University of Baltimore Law School
        Lewis Pitts, Esq., Legal Aid of North Carolina, Advocates
         for Children's Services
        Sherry Quirk, Esq., Co-founder, First Star and Partner,
         Sullivan & Worcester LLP
        Deborah Sams, CEO, First Star
        Whytni Kernodle Frederick, Esq., Program Director, Legal
         Projects, First Star

Muskogee Woman Sentenced For Fraud

The Ada Evening News reports that a Muskogee, Oklahoma was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay restitution of $13,189.36 for converting to her own use SSI benefits that she received as representative payee for a minor child.

Second Cleveland Plain Dealer Article

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a second article today on the backlogs at Social Security. This one deals with Social Security's problems answering its phones. Here is an excerpt:

"They open at 8 o'clock, you start calling a couple of minutes before 8 and make sure you have a phone that has redial," says Dave Rybka of Chesterland, who waited for more than two years to get disability benefits.

"I just call, hang up, hit redial, hang up, hit redial. If you're not in by 8:05, you're done. During the day, I've found, I never got through."

Commenting Enabled

I have enabled "commenting" on this blog on an experimental basis. I will evaluate it in a few days. I do not want to spend my time policing this site, but without comments I have little idea what other people think about what I am writing and that can be lonely. At least a reader of this blog can totally ignore the comments if they want.

Funding Resolution Passed

This one has not been reported in the newspapers, since no one is proud of it, but yesterday Congress finally passed and the President signed a continuing funding resolution that keeps the federal government operating through the end of September. This gives the Social Security Administration a budget that requires a near complete hiring freeze through the end of September, except for high priority jobs such as Federal Reviewing Officers.

Cleveland Plain Dealer On Backlogs

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has an article on the backlog of claimants awaiting a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge. At this end is this all too typical quote from a Social Security disability claimant:

In the beginning, I was angry. Now I just have a feeling of hopelessness. One day I was a working person with a car, packing my lunch and going to work. A couple of months later, I lost everything I had. Everything.

SSA Annual Performance Plan Issued -- Cutting Claimants Off Benefits More Important Than Hearing Backlogs

The Social Security Administration has issued its 2008 fiscal year annual performance plan and revised final 2007 fiscal year annual performance plan. The plan indicates a target of 524 days average processing time for hearings in 2007 and 541 days in 2008, which means that Social Security claimants who have asked for a hearing would have to wait more than a half month longer. The plan calls for dramatically more SSI non-disability redeterminations and continuing disability reviews in 2008 than in 2007. Giving priority to redeterminations and continuing disability reviews over hearing processing time may not sit well with Congressional Democrats.

Some More From Yesterday's Hearing

Some excerpts from the prepared statement of Sylvester Schieder, Chairman of the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB):

The number of hearings pending at the end of fiscal year 2006 showed an increase over the prior year from 708 thousand to 716 thousand, but that was far smaller than the 756 thousand projected at the start of the year. However, this was not because the agency processed more claims than it had expected to but rather because there were fewer appeals than expected. That sounds like good news, but at least part of the reduction in the number of new hearings cases is a reflection of the growing number of cases remaining undecided at the earlier, reconsideration stage.

There is another factor, unknown to Mr. Schieber, that I am pretty sure of, even though I have no statistics on it. There is a growing backlog of cases in which an appeal has been filed, but not yet logged into Social Security's computer system, because of staffing shortages at Social Security's field offices. This is a point referred to by Rick Warsinskey of NCSSMA whose statement for the record quotes from an e-mail he had received from a Social Security field office employee who complained, among other things, that his or her office could not "get to the appeals being mailed in."

Here is a table provided by Mr. Schieber, but even this downplays the funding problem, since Social Security was only asking for what it could conceivably get, not what it actually needed:

Social Security Administrative Funding (millions)
		President's
	SSA	Budget	Final
Fiscal Year	Request	Request	Appropriation
2000	$ 6,997.0	$ 6,706.0	$ 6,572.0
2001	$ 7,466.0	$ 7,134.0	$ 7,124.0
2002	$ 8,122.0	$ 7,581.5	$ 7,569.6
2003	$ 8,080.0	$ 8,282.8	$ 7,885.1
2004	$ 9,018.0	$ 8,530.0	$ 8,313.2
2005	$ 9,442.0	$ 8,878.0	$ 8,732.5
2006	$ 10,240.0	$ 9,403.0	$ 9,108.6
2007	$ 10,350.0	$ 9,496.0	$ 9,294.0
Total	$ 69,715.0	$ 66,011.3	$ 64,599.0

Thank You, Representatives Jones and Pomeroy

I want to thank Representatives Jones and Pomeroy for their intemperate outbursts at yesterday's Social Security Subcommittee hearing. In a narrow sense, their remarks were unfair to the current Commissioner of Social Security and their criticisms were misplaced, but in a larger sense hitting the Commissioner with a verbal two by four was exactly the right thing to do.

Their remarks were unfair to Commissioner Astrue because he had just started on his job two days earlier. He can hardly be blamed for any mess at Social Security. It is a wonder that he was willing to show up for any Congressional hearing when he may not have even finished filling out his W-4.

The criticisms were also misplaced. Jones and Tubbs were focusing upon the narrow issue of why the Office of Personnel Management has still not produced a new register from which Social Security could hire Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) after having worked on the problem for ten years. This is absurd and unbelievable, but the sad fact is that even if OPM had produced a new register eight years ago, things would be little different at Social Security today. The problem is that there has not been enough money in the budget to hire as many ALJs as have been needed. Social Security has been able to hire the limited number of ALJs they could afford off the old register, making a new register less urgent than it might seem at first blush. Of course, Social Security may have told Jones and Tubbs and others in Congress that the problem was OPM instead of the budget or, at least, implied this. Anyone responsible for such a deception should be ashamed.

In a larger sense, there was an urgent need for the Social Security Subcommittee to demonstrate to upper management at Social Security that there is a new sheriff in town and things are going to change. Social Security needs to understand that frankness about the agency's service delivery problems is essential. There can be no more happy talk that minimizes the current problems while promising that some grand plan to be implemented in the future will solve all of Social Security's problems. That is no longer an option. Upper management must realize that Social Security's staffing situation is dire and urgent action is essential. Solutions that were unthinkable last October because they could be criticized as "paying down the backlog" should be urgent necessities today.